Campaigners call for alcohol advert watershed

A 21:00 watershed is needed to prevent young children from seeing adverts promoting alcohol during the day, a campaign group has said.

Alcohol Concern found that alcohol adverts increase 'dramatically' between 15:00 and 17:00 - the time that most children come home from school.

After monitoring drinks adverts shown before and after the watershed during two weeks in December 2006 and March 2007, Alcohol Concern discovered that there are twice as many supermarket alcohol adverts shown before 21:00 then after.

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Programmes popular with children including Coronation Street, The Simpsons, Home and Away and The X Factor were allowed to carry drinks adverts.

Commenting on the findings, Alcohol Concern chief executive Srabani Sen said: 'In our view a watershed ban is the only way to give parents the peace of mind of knowing that their children can be kept safe from the influence of advertising.'

At present drinks adverts are only prohibited if the number of children watching is 20 per cent greater than the proportion of children in society.

The group is also calling for programmes which run after the watershed but still appeal to children, for example football matches, to only have alcohol adverts if less than ten per cent of the audience are estimated to be children.

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